Star Cross, 2009

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Star Cross is drawn from a story told to Hiwa K by his oldest brother when he was eleven. Adib, the artist‘s brother, was just back from the prison where was held captive for three months - he had tried to escape from the regime in Iraq and go to Europe, but he found himself in this Pakistani jail where he was asked by the other prisoners to solve the following riddle, told to him in the form of fairytale:„A man goes to the West and falls in love with the Princess there. He asks the King for her hand. The father puts him into prison and gives him a riddle: `If you make a cross out of this star without touching it then you will be my sonin- law, but if you don‘t manage this by tomorrow morning, you will be hanged in public.´ The poor young man looks at the puzzle all night and cries tears of helplessness. A few teardrops fall where the broken matches were conjoined and they start to stretch back to form the shape of a cross.“

Star Cross is drawn from a story told to Hiwa K by his oldest brother when he was eleven. Adib, the artist‘s brother, was just back from the prison where was held captive for three months - he had tried to escape from the regime in Iraq and go to Europe, but he found himself in this Pakistani jail where he was asked by the other prisoners to solve the following riddle, told to him in the form of fairytale: "A man goes to the West and falls in love with the Princess there. He asks the King for her hand. The father puts him into prison and gives him a riddle: 'If you make a cross out of this star without touching it then you will be my son in-law, but if you don‘t manage this by tomorrow morning, you will be hanged in public.' The poor young man looks at the puzzle all night and cries tears of helplessness. A few teardrops fall where the broken matches were conjoined and they start to stretch back to form the shape of a cross.“

Hiwa K was born in Kurdistan-Northern Iraq in 1975. His informal studies in his home town Sulaymaniyah were focused on European literature and philosophy, learnt from available books translated into Arabic. After moving to Europe in 2002, Hiwa K studied music as a pupil of the Flamenco master Paco Peña in Rotterdam, and subsequently settled in Germany. His works escape normative aesthetics but give a possibility of another vibration to vernacular forms, oral histories (Chicago boys, 2010), modes of encounter (Cooking with Mama, 2006) and political situations (This lemon tastes of apple, 2011). The repository of his references consists of stories told by family members and friends, found situations as well as everyday forms that are the products of pragmatics and necessity. He continuously critiques the art education system and the professionalization of art practice, as well as the myth of the individual artist. Many of his works have a strong collective and participatory dimension, and express the concept of obtaining knowledge from everyday experience rather than doctrine. Hiwa K participated in various group shows such as Manifesta 7, Trient (2008), La Triennale, Intense Proximity, Paris (2012), the “Edgware Road Project” at the Serpentine Gallery, London (2012), the Venice Biennale (2015) and documenta14, Kassel/Athens (2017). A selection of recent solo shows include the New Museum, NYC (2018), S.M.A.K., Ghent (2018) and Kunstverein Hannover (2018). Upcoming solo shows will be held at Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and at the Van Every/Smith Galleries in North Carolina, USA. In 2016 he received the Arnold Bode Prize and the Schering Stiftung Art Award and had a solo exhibition at KW, Berlin (2017). His “Chicago Boys” project is continuously hosted by international institutions.